An offline pet game for Android · Ages 6 to 12
Nozu the Fruit Fly
Care for a curious cartoon fruit fly, then explore his world map, which is shaped like his brain: six worlds, each built around a real fruit-fly sense, all on the wiring map of a real fruit fly.
- Five learning brains
- Six languages
- Ad-free
- Everything stays on the device
- Plays anywhere, even on a plane
- One purchase unlocks everything
A pet to look after
Nozu hatches from a pupa, gets his name from you and moves into a cozy home with a garden and a playroom. Feed him, wash him, play with him, put him to bed, dress him up and arrange his room.
Care
Food, a bath, play and sleep. Nozu's needs show as friendly rings around him.
Play
Mini-games in every world, plus a practice mode with no hearts to lose.
Discover
Collect neuron cards, fill Nozu's diary and peek into the Brain Window.
The brain is the map
Nozu's world map is shaped like his brain. Each of the six worlds is a brain region built around a real fruit-fly sense or behaviour: a 40-level journey through four places, with a treasure hidden in every level, and free play.
Smell
Antennal lobe
Follow a drifting scent plume. When Nozu loses it, he zig-zags to find it again, as real flies do.
Taste
Taste region
Flies taste with their feet! Step on tiles to find sweet, sour and bitter, and build the meal Nozu craves.
Vision
Optic lobes
See through a compound eye, where anything that moves pops out. Watch out for the quick-escape levels.
Flight
Ventral nerve cord
Bank, glide and ride the gusts to collect nectar, with a wing-song rhythm challenge every few levels.
Compass
Central complex
Find the way home using the sun and landmarks.
Learning
Mushroom body
Pair a scent with nectar, then watch Nozu choose on his own. The learning here is a game layer added on top of the fixed wiring map.
Five learning brains
Here your child is the teacher. After a round Nozu has a go himself, and your child checks his answer. One picture shows "What I know" facing "What Nozu knows", and both grow from lesson to lesson.
Numbers
Adding, taking away, the times tables and sharing. A new fact starts as fruit to count and comes back on later days until it is quick and sure.
Words
120 picture words to recognise and build, letter by letter.
Memory
Repeat a trail of firefly lights.
Logic
Find the piece that completes the pattern.
Focus
Spot the odd one out, the twins and what has changed.
For parents
Forty levels in every world, at the child's own pace. In Settings, parents see every fact and can choose the number the class is learning.
A window into Nozu's brain
In the Brain Window you can watch the real positions of neurons from the fruit-fly wiring map light up while Nozu's simulation runs. Stimulate a sense, compare Nozu with a twin that has no wiring, and find out why Nozu did what he just did.
Science, clearly labelled: some of Nozu's reactions come from a simplified simulation of the MaleCNS v1.0 wiring map of a real fruit fly. The five learning brains and the lessons of the Learning world are a learning layer that your child trains on top of the fixed wiring. Illustrations are labelled as illustrations.
Free to start, one purchase for everything
Locked parts show a gentle lock, and buying is possible only behind the press-and-hold Settings gate. Nozu never nags.
Free
- In the Smell world: the tutorial, free play and the first chapter (10 levels)
- In every learning world: the tutorial, the first chapter (10 levels) and its review lessons
- The tutorial and first two levels of every other world
- The Brain Window and the twin demo
- Caring for Nozu and daily discoveries
- 8 neuron cards and 4 of the 24 wardrobe items
Full unlock
- Every level of all six worlds and of every learning world, and free play in each of the six
- Every neuron card and all 24 wardrobe items, to collect as you play
- One purchase through Google Play: no subscription, no ads and no in-game currency sold for money
- The price is shown in Google Play before you pay
Made for families
- Nozu's data stays on your device: no ads, no account, no chat and no tracking.
- Plays fully offline. Only buying or restoring the unlock needs Google Play.
- Purchases, settings and backups sit behind a press-and-hold gate.
- Reduced motion, screen-reader labels, large touch targets, a vibration switch and a practice mode without time pressure.
- A complete interface in English, Hebrew, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese, on phones, tablets and foldables.
Built on a mapped fruit-fly brain
Nozu is built on MaleCNS v1.0, a wiring map (connectome) of the central nervous system of a male fruit fly, released by FlyEM at HHMI Janelia with the University of Cambridge, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Google Research under the CC BY 4.0 licence. Nozu simplifies and adapts the data for a game. The researchers have not reviewed or endorsed Nozu.